


IT'S MORPHIN' TIME

by NXTDNDIMHO



Series: NXTDNDIMHO [4]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), WWE NXT - Fandom, World Wrestling Entertainment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:41:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NXTDNDIMHO/pseuds/NXTDNDIMHO
Summary: NXT Wrestling Fan is a podcast about falling in love with wrestling. It follows NXT starting 22 May 2013. It's a good show made by lovely people.Those lovely people made a joke about Adrian Neville as a Halfling Monk and Corey Graves as an Elf Rogue that has been a running fixture of the show. When Xavier Woods joined them for a Triple Threat match, it was stated that he would be a Dragonborn Bard. This fired my singular obsession.This work came after Episode XIII: The Wrath of Khansaro
Series: NXTDNDIMHO [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627138
Kudos: 1





	IT'S MORPHIN' TIME

I was going to do someone else this week, but the D&D Party as to be complete! So here we are, rounding out the trio with Xavier Woods, just kinda cropping up out of nowhere for no real discernible reason, fun and interesting in his own right if only marginally integrated with an established adventuring group, just like when you've got a guest player in real life! I don't think a character's ever clicked for me as fast as when Bob said "Dragonborn Bard," so here we are.

Dragonborn are probably the most D&D-ass D&D thing that comes packaged in the 5e Player's Handbook. Every other core race has a clear lineage back to traditional mythology or Tolkien, but Dragonborn are among the very few iconic creatures unique to the game's native lore (the other major example of this is Beholders, which are a different thing entirely). They are interesting in that they are humanoids descendant from Dragons, but not necessarily in the same way that the Dragonblood Sorcerers are descendant from Dragons. They are also distinct from Half-Dragons, although you'd be forgiven for confusing the two because Half-Dragons are basically 3.5's version of Dragonborn and... look, Dragons are a full third of the words that make up the game's title, so there's a lot to unpack. I think the most interesting idea to play with when adapting a person into a Dragonborn character is which of the TEN DISTINCT FLAVORS OF DRAGON they are most like, and using that as a guide to determining what sort of Dragonborn they are like.

The two major groups of 5e dragons are Chromatic and Metallic, the split being over loyalties to the glorious Lawful Good dragon Bahamut, who is has Platinum scales because that's the fanciest kind of coin, and the dastardly, five headed Tiamut, who is driven by emotion and is obviously coded as female because she has conflicting emotions I guess. I do not personally engage with the alignment system is a rule because I emphatically disagree with coding anything or (and especially) anyone as explicitly evil. This is not the position of the authors of the Monster Manual, which is my guide through this selection process. It paints the Chromatic dragons as bestial monsters and the Chromatic dragons as capricious and singleminded. I think this is one of the core issues with dragons that function like regular people within narratives: Dragons as literary devices are closer to forces of nature or metaphors than they are to characters, therefor any human motivation they have ends up operating on a giant scale and skews towards an instinct towards hoarding. With all this in mind, I immediately ruled out all the Chromatic options because I'm not interested in trying to draw the distinction between a black man and some sort of beast, and I narrowed in on either Brass or Copper because they are the most gregarious of the Metallic dragons, and then Copper specifically because they are flagged as, "Good Hosts" and Xavier Woods seems like the kind of guy who could throw a good party.

After that, the rest of the build is pretty easy. Sage is the standard background for characters who have had formal, post-secondary education, so while that choice doesn't build towards any sort of established archetype it makes the kind of character he is distinctive. I chose the College of Satire almost solely for "Tumbling Fool," which fits his extremely chaotic and slippery fighting style quite well. One of the most iconic moments from the D&D Party's match against The Shield was Woods and Neville's synchronized flips into their opponents, which proves that Woods has chops as an acrobat (see the Acrobatics Proficiency), but it is not his focus. Rather, his greatest strengths are in his distinction of personality and ( I feel pretty confident in saying this, as most of his Wikipedia page is devoted to exploits as part of New Day) what he can contribute to a team effort, which lend themselves well to his position as a Bard, high Charisma score, and Performance proficiency.

As a final not, he no joke actually plays the trombone. The link leads to him in a guest spot on Postmodern Jukebox.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuQQOInbF88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuQQOInbF88&fbclid=IwAR3nRJQv4Wiy4Bs36NbXyUhsdXLALFIrvkM33y4aA8KZamEMJJZesbWIvaA)  
  
Addendum: Comments from this pieces's original Facebook post have been added here because they're fun.


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